This cracking immersive projection experience showcases some of the UK's most iconic animations on a grand scale. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe Larger Than Life: Starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and More is the latest immersive projection show to debut at Lightroom's flagship venue in King's Cross and traces the history of Aardman, the UK's most decorated animation studio, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. The fifty-minute-long show, which is made up of archive interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and bespoke stop-motion sequences, is projected onto the 11-metre-high walls and floor of Lightroom's cavernous venue and offers visitors a peek behind the curtain at how Aardman's work is created, one frame at a time. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe As with every major production at Lightroom, Larger Than Life is a looping presentation. Visitors are free to move around the space throughout to take in the show from different vantage points and arrive and leave at any time. They're also welcome to stay for multiple loops of the presentation, which is advisable given the sheer amount of animated goodness on screen. The show is broken up into eight chapters, exploring everything from the creation of the company and early forays into stop-motion animation through to a behind-the-scenes breakdown of how an army of illustrators, carpenters, mould-makers and animators all work in tandem on their feature-length projects. As with Lightroom's last immersive production, David Bowie: You're Not Alone, Larger Than Life is narrated entirely by archival interviews, with the likes of co-founders Peter Lord, David Sproxton and Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park sharing first-hand accounts of the company's history and creative process. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe After a kaleidoscopic overture at the top of the film (if such a thing exists when it loops) featuring all of Aardman's best-known characters, audiences get a brief overview of how the painstaking process of creating stop-motion animation works, alongside an acknowledgement of the form's early pioneers - Georges Méliès, Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen. The clock winds back to the early 1970s, when Lord and Sproxton, and Park, then unknown to one another, began experimenting with the filmmaking technique they would later help redefine. For Lord and Sproxton, early success came through their work with the BBC on Vision On. For Park, it was crude 8mm films made at his Preston family home before he began work on A Grand Day Out while studying at the National Film and Television School. From here, Larger Than Life works through the company's body of work at pace, covering everything from Morph and Creature Comforts to The Pirates and Robin Robin. Along the way, it briefly detours to showcase some of Aardman's commercial work and the much-loved music video for Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer', but the focus remains on its biggest hits - Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep - for most of the film's duration. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe Some of the most captivating sections of Larger Than Life dissect the filmmaking process behind creating Aardman's work, with time devoted to explaining how each film is written and storyboarded, and the voices are recorded before a frame of animation is committed to film. By way of demonstration, the train chase sequence from The Wrong Trousers is broken down shot by shot, with the original sketches for each displayed on Lightroom's mammoth walls before the accompanying animated shot plays in quick succession. There's also a fascinating chapter that explains how modern-day Aardman can produce films at scale in Bristol, with multiple units working independently on different scenes under the same roof, referencing live-action video of employees acting out every shot to nail down the expressions, timings, and compositions of each shot. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe Interspersed with these documentary-like chapters are numerous excerpts from Aardman's work, scaled up to cover the entirety of Lightroom's main projection wall and left to play uninterrupted. To make full use of the venue's staggering size, the accompanying walls feature newly created, subtle animations that mirror the main film's content. During a clip from Chicken Run's opening scene, the light from Mr Tweedy's torch scans every corner of the room; Gromit's attempt to hide from Feathers McGraw inside a dog food box sees cardboard cover the rest of the space, and Wallace's time on the moon in A Grand Day Out features a vast, cheese-covered vista. The presentation also features newly created stop-motion sequences made especially for Lightroom, starring Morph, Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit. Given his commercial success, Shaun the Sheep receives the lion's share of attention, with multiple 'Baa-rns Got Talent' sequences showing Shaun and friends performing various feats of acrobatics, but all of these moments are just as delightful as their long-form pieces and make great use of Lightroom's towering 11-metre-high walls. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe While it's a joy to watch Aardman's work be projected onto the venue's giant screens and see the craftsmanship that went into creating it, the ground covered by Larger Than Life will be familiar to anyone who saw the 2015 retrospective, A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman, with both films drawing from a lot of the same archive material and interviews. Thankfully, the visual flair on display throughout more than makes up for this reliance on previously seen footage, with the chapters covering the company's creation receiving a drastic glow-up that takes full advantage of Lightroom's visual real estate. There are also some gorgeous scenes depicting Aardman's characters - not least the animals of Creature Comforts, who share the screen across room-wide environments, and Wallace and Gromit, who are seen inhabiting the various rooms of 62 West Wallaby Street through a cross-section of the house. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe For those who have grown up with Aardman's work, Larger Than Life delivers a hugely engaging nostalgia trip that shines a spotlight on the countless hours given over to crafting some of the UK's most iconic animated films. Despite its familiar archive material, the show's all-encompassing presentation makes even the most recognisable moments from Aardman's body of work feel fresh, immersive and alive. As Wallace would say, they've done a cracking job. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Larger Than Life runs at Lightroom in King's Cross until 4th January 2027. Tickets are priced from £25 for adults and £15 for children and students. For more information and to book tickets, visit lightroom.uk

Image: Line of Duty: Operation Echo Prepare to step into the world of betrayal and police intrigue and investigation, as CityDays announces a brand-new playable experience based on the hit BBC TV series Line of Duty. Line of Duty: Operation Echo will be launching on the streets of London in early 2027. Line of Duty: Operation Echo will give players the chance to step into the shoes of anti-corruption officers and investigate their very own case. Teams will navigate the crooked back streets and hidden corners of the capital, uncover physical evidence, chase leads and work together to finally uncover the truth. Photo: Francois Olwage Trust, deception and difficult decisions will be at the heart of the experience. Teams will visit different locations across London, where pubs, cafés, landmarks and other venues will become part of the investigation. At each location, players will uncover clues, solve escape room-style puzzles, decipher riddles and wrestle with moral dilemmas as they piece together their case through a combination of physical evidence, video, audio and phone messaging. Navigational clues and riddles will also lead players to permanent features hidden in the city streets, from plaques and statues to distinctive architecture and landmarks. Expect to encounter CCTV footage, fingerprints, forensic reports, diary entries, bank records and more, while interacting with characters through different formats to uncover crucial information and reveal the truth as the investigation unfolds. But finding the evidence is only part of the challenge. Players will need to decide who to trust, where to take their investigation next and how far they are willing to go for justice. Decisions have consequences, and difficult choices shape the story and potentially change the outcome of the investigation. Photo: Samuel Quek The live experience will take teams of 2-8 players on a 2-to-3-hour journey, navigating a 4-5 km walkable investigation through London. Combining escape room-style puzzles, navigational clues, riddles and interactive storytelling, the experience will bring the world of Line of Duty into the heart of the capital. Players will be scored based on how they perform and the outcome they achieve, with their result contributing to a leaderboard. Each team will also receive a personalised certificate featuring their score, accolades and a persona based on how they approached the investigation, from “Super Sleuths” to “Reckless Mavericks”. Tom Rymer, founder of CityDays said: We’re thrilled to be bringing Line of Duty to life as our next experience in London. Following the launches of Race Across the World: The Experience both in London and across the UK alongside The Traitors: Anywhere, we’ve seen first-hand how exciting and rewarding it is for people to step inside and explore a world they know and love, and we can’t wait to give Line of Duty fans that same opportunity. We’re hugely excited to create something that feels authentic to the world of Line of Duty, while giving people a completely new way to experience it together. Lou Black, Global SVP of Brand & Commercial Partnerships at Studio 55 said: At its heart, Line of Duty is driven by high stakes, moral grey areas, and one relentless pursuit: uncovering the truth. Line of Duty : Operation Echo takes that tension off the screen and puts it directly into the hands of fans, turning the streets of London into an active AC-12 investigation. We’re thrilled to partner with CityDays to bring Line of Duty into the experiential space for the first time ever. Perfect for groups of friends, family and colleagues, as well as fans of the show, Line of Duty: Operation Echo promises a thrilling day out where teams must work together, question everything and decide who they can trust. Line of Duty: Operation Echo will launch in early 2027. For more information and to sign up to the waitlist, visit lineofdutyexperience.com

Photo: Daniel Carminati Theming a dining experience around London’s most immersive musical is no small thing. Can Covent Garden’s Balthazar capture the seedy decadence of Cabaret’s Weimar Berlin atmosphere? For this six-week residency (21st September to 1st November), the restaurant has paired with Rebecca Frecknall's winner of seven Olivier awards. The theatrical production, which has passed 1,500 performances and currently stands as the longest-running West End staging of the musical, made its name with the nifty idea of turning the pre-show into a show. Even if the bar is very low, Cabaret is the West End’s most successful stab at immersive theatre. The audience enter through the rear entrance of the Playhouse Theatre and, after having their tickets checked, wander into a basement bar. A complimentary shot of liquor or a small beer is pressed into the hands of those who want to start the party early. Inside, the entire venue is decked out to resemble a louche, subterranean club. Lighting is kept low even if everyone may be high (the original press release collaborated with a hemp supplier and suggested that audiences ‘can even smoke a strain for more fun’). Throughout this ‘Prologue’, dancers in period attire cavort around the space, pulling focus and returning sly smiles. Once the metaphorical curtain goes up on Tom Scutt’s evocative staging, the dancers retreat to visible spots around the venue and embedded musicians strike up. Balthazar deconstructs this concept through a set menu, a cocktail list and (on Fridays only) live entertainment in the form of music and dance. That week-ending evening has a very different vibe. First, Nic Myers (who has done time as the Playhouse’s once-a-week Sally Bowles) and her musical director Jill Farrow work through well-known songs from the musical, among them ‘Perfectly Marvelous’, ‘Don’t Tell Mama’, ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Mein Herr’. Even if it smacks more of small-c cabaret than its capitalised cousin, this combination of piano and powerful vocals hits home. Anyone expecting a rousing rendition of the arguably most memorable ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’ – sung in Cabaret to signal the pivot into much darker territory – will be disappointed. Considering, though, how that utter bastard of an earworm has been adopted by right-wingers from the student section of the Conservative Party to white supremacist bands, that omission may not be a complete surprise. Photo: Daniel Carminati After the singing finishes, four Prologue dancers (Jack William Parry, Zara Liu, Ami Benton and Shanelle Clemenson) take over the room. They prowl about the front of the restaurant, walk along the low wooden walls that fence the dining area and then drop onto the stage. Either alone or working in pairs or as a trio, they reassemble as a quartet for the memorable finale. The dancers are the most tenuous link to the West End production. What has not made the journey is the transgression. The Playhouse Prologue trades in sensuality and gender play with the confidence of a show built to unsettle. Here the signalling amounts to one of the three women donning a thin painted-on moustache and Parry, the only man, wearing heavy green eye make-up. The touches of menace and deviance Frecknall conjured up for her show have not migrated into this establishment. Photo: Daniel Carminati For this interpretation of Weimar Berlin, the menu leans more to the west of Alsace than east of it. Starters include a French onion soup and duck confit pâté; the mains have salmon from the Shetlands and Gallic favourite entrecôte (a palm-sized slab of steak with the tenderness of a midnight kiss); the desserts feature Paris-Brest (hazelnut praline with vanilla ice cream), and you can quaff an apple spritz that has a Teutonic name and French calvados in it. Of everything on the £65 Friday card, only the Black Forest gâteau has any claim on Germany, and even that effort – deconstructed but delicious – hails from the opposite corner of the country. The cocktail list is where the tie-in is most obvious. Five of the six drinks are built on Brugal 1888’s Dominican rum and named after songs: ‘Willkommen’, ‘Mein Mojito’, ‘So What?’, ‘Perfectly Marvelous’ and ‘The Finale’. The odd one out, the £12.50 ‘Apfel Spritz’, combines a German name, Spanish vermouth and French calvados. Photo: Daniel Carminati The mishmash of international influences makes the whole enterprise feel more like a commercially minded graft onto a standard French brasserie concept than the absinthe-soaked reinvention it could have been (the nearest thing on the drinks card is a touch of anise in the ‘Perfectly Marvelous’). It would be harsh, though, to accuse Balthazar of jumping on a bandwagon. That ship has long since sailed: Christopher Isherwood distilled his experiences in the German capital into the 1939 short novel Goodbye to Berlin, John Van Druten turned that into the 1951 play I Am a Camera, and in 1966 Joe Masteroff, John Kander and Fred Ebb turned the play into Cabaret, adding the Kit Kat Klub and its Emcee. Each adapter borrowed from the last, switched art form and added something of their own. Balthazar is simply continuing that trend, only with a brilliantly executed set menu, highly commendable service and a modified cocktail list. ★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Words: Franco Milazzo Cabaret at The Kit Kat Club at Balthazar runs at Balthazar Covent Garden every Friday until 1st November 2026. Tickets, which include a three-course meal, are priced from £65.00 per person. To book, visit balthazarlondon.com

Our annual round-up of the best, spookiest, and most intense immersive horror experiences on offer across London this October... As always, London is playing host to some terrifying immersive experiences this October. To help you make the most of spooky season, we've gathered together all the information you need to make your next night out as fun as it is terrifying. Below is our pick of the best experiences on offer across the month for those looking for various levels of fright. There's something on offer for everyone's taste this Halloween, if you're brave enough... This guide will be updated as more experiences are announced. Check back later in the month for more recommendations. The Nightmare Realm Photo: The Nightmare Realm One of Europe's biggest immersive horror attractions, The Nightmare Realm, is making its UK debut this Halloween season after 17 years of terrifying guests across the Irish Sea. Their London debut will feature two brand-new headline experiences. Avery Hill Asylum, which invites guests inside a Victorian institution where the dangerously obsessive Dr Thorne has pushed medical experimentation beyond the limits of humanity, and Sundown Manor, which follows an ancient Irish bloodline that has crossed the Irish Sea in search of fresh victims. Connecting both experiences is Halloween Town, an interactive village in which guests may overhear conversations, uncover hidden mysteries and potentially discover secret rooms concealed within the town. The experience is set to have over 70 live actors, making it the capital's largest immersive horror experience. For the first time, The Nightmare Realm crosses the Irish Sea, bringing its unique brand of cinematic horror to London. But we didn’t come to recreate what you’ve seen before. We’ve come to tell a brand new story. Inside Avery Hill Mansion, A Nightmare From Overseas unfolds through two headline immersive horror attractions, Halloween Town and hidden experiences woven throughout the Realm. Every environment, every character and every encounter has been created exclusively for this chapter. The Nightmare Realm was never built on repeating the same scares. Every year, we build a new world. Every year, we tell a new story. This year…London becomes part of the legend. Photo: The Nightmare Realm 📍 Eltham 💰 From £35.00 👻 Scare Level: 4/5 🕒 9th October - 1st November 2025 🎟️ Book via thenightmarerealm.com Room 13 by Immersive Octopus Image: Immersive Octopus/Battersea Arts Centre Room 13, an original immersive horror experience from Tom Maller (director of Peaky Blinders: The Rise, Doctor Who: Time Fracture, Secret Cinema's Casino Royale, Blade Runner, and Romeo + Juliet), is set to launch at Battersea Arts Centre this October for a two-week limited run. Inspired by the 2015 fire at Battersea Arts Centre, the 35-minute-long experience, which will feature live actors, special effects and immersive design, will blur the lines between local history and imagined unreality. In the days following the devastating fire in Battersea Arts Centre on Friday 13th March 2015, a team of builders uncovered a sealed chamber in the original stone structure. When they opened the chamber, what they found was so disturbing that the renovation came to an immediate halt. 11 years later, the door is unsealed once again. The door to Room 13… 📍 Clapham Junction 💰 From £20.00 👻 Scare Level: ?/5 🕒 16th October - 1st November 2026 🎟️ Book via bac.org.uk Hell's Waiting Room by ScreamWorks Image: ScreamWorks Since their debut in 2022, ScreamWorks has earned a reputation for creating some of London's best immersive horror experiences. Their debut show, Bloodbath, pushed the boundaries of immersive theatre to an extreme and saw visitors being force-fed, tied up, undressed, and chased through an air vent on their hands and knees. Later experiences, including The Ghost Hunt, had guests make their way through a Victorian house illuminated only by torchlight as they discover the truth behind a family's gruesome murder. While they've been exploring how far they can push escape room-style experiences in recent years, they're going back to basics this October. For the 2026 Halloween season, they'll be debuting Hell's Waiting Room, an immersive walkthrough experience in which condemned souls await processing into the underworld. Expect big scares, claustrophobic spaces and tough moral decisions. ScreamWorks don't pull their punches, so believe the content warnings... Since the pandemic, the underworld has become overwhelmed.​ The queues are endless. And Satan has begun outsourcing the overflow. Hidden behind an old curiosity shop in East London lies Hell’s Waiting Room - a labyrinth of forgotten corridors, condemned souls and eternal limbo, overseen by a man known only as the Collector. Rumour has it that for every soul he delivers, Satan rewards him with another cursed artefact for his ever-growing collection. And tonight… your names have been entered into the ledger. 📍 Bethnal Green 💰 From £25.00 👻 Scare Level: 5/5 🕒 23rd - 31st October 2026 🎟️ Book via screamworks.london ASH - The Witch Trials of Drudenhaus by COLAB Theatre Photo: Alex Walton for COLAB Theatre Immersive stalwarts COLAB Theatre return this Halloween with two Halloween experiences in different corners of the city. The first, ASH - The Witch Trials of Drudenhaus, which is directed by Bertie Watkins and performed by Lawrence Howard, has been designed for an audience of just two people per performance, making it the most intimate immersive experience on offer in London this Halloween. As part of the experience, audience members will take part in a live trial and will have to fight off accusations of being witches from The Inquisitor. Those in the hot seat can expect to be blindfolded for portions of the show and will be guided, held and restrained at times too. Due to the small audience sizes, tickets for this will be snapped up quickly, so don't hang around. It'll be the hottest ticket in town this Halloween. Can you prove you’re not a witch? This Halloween, COLAB Theatre invites two audience members at a time into ASH — The Witch Trials of Drudenhaus, a candlelit, close-contact theatrical trial at The Cottage, their Tudor house on Borough High Street. Rooted in the Bamberg trials of 1627, ASH is not fantasy horror. It is interrogation, confession, faith and shame - history close enough to breathe on you. A single Inquisitor sits across a wooden table strewn with candles, ash and the miniature dollhouse world of a village. Every mark that looks like witchcraft is slowly revealed as proof that the village came to her for help. The ash is not a curse. It is a bandage. 📍 London Bridge 💰 From £54.00 👻 Scare Level: ?/5 🕒 22nd October - 7th November 2026 🎟️ Book via ashimmersive.com SPORE by COLAB Theatre Image: COLAB Theatre COLAB's second Halloween experience will see them take over all six floors of an abandoned dental school near King's Cross for SPORE, an immersive horror experience described by the show's director, Bertie Watkins, as 'The Last of Us meets Arrival'. Over 90 minutes, groups of up to 30 people venture into the derelict building to investigate a fungal outbreak that may be trying to communicate. Blending site-specific theatre, interactive mystery and live horror, SPORE will force audiences to make moral decisions that shape the outcome of the experience, and come face to face with half-fungal survivors while trying to work out what happened to the teams that entered the site before them. A forgotten London dental school has been sealed under quarantine. Deep beneath its anatomy labs, an intelligent fungal network has begun to spread — communicating through bone, radio interference and living tissue. Two investigation teams have already vanished inside. You and your team are next. Pull on a protective suit and descend through six floors of decayed, atmospheric playing space. Gather samples, decode the organism’s language, place transmitters and piece together what happened to those who came before you. Along the way you’ll meet the survivors the spores have already changed - and confront one terrible question: is this outbreak a threat to contain, or something trying to make contact? 📍 Chancery Lane/King's Cross 💰 From £38.50 👻 Scare Level: ?/5 🕒 17th October - 8th November 2026 🎟️ Book via sporelondon.com Hexmoor: Wizarding Prison by Inventive Productions Photo: Captivate Imagery Immersive cocktail experience Hexmoor, which comes from the creators of Alcotraz and Moonshine Saloon, is more supernatural than scary, but nonetheless still a solid Halloween outing for those looking for something on the tamer side. As part of the experience, guests find themselves inside a jail cell serving out a sentence in a wizarding prison under the watchful eye of powerful sorceress Cordelia Constance-Xanthe. As the story unfolds, inmates get to enjoy three Halloween-inspired magical cocktails crafted by a team of mixologists, travel through an ethereal portal hidden within a fireplace and collude with fellow inmates. According to Sam Shearman, creator of Hexmoor and founder of Inventive Productions, "Most Halloween attractions are built to frighten you for twenty minutes and send you home. We built something where you stay for longer, in a jumpsuit, with a drink and a story to work out. The threat is real when it arrives, but people book because they want to be in the story rather than run through it." Your magical misdeeds have led you to a previously unknown wizarding prison. Will you play by the rules and see the light of day again or descend into darker depths? Explore Hexmoor, and you will find out soon enough. Experience a world of mysticism and alchemy at Hexmoor, the world’s first immersive, wizarding prison bar. Don your official jumpsuit and rub shoulders with the notorious dark arts wizards who call Hexmoor home. Photo: Captivate Imagery 📍 Hoxton 💰 From £48.00 👻 Scare Level: 2/5 🕒 Ongoing 🎟️ Book via hexmoor.co.uk Bridge Command - Halloween Missions Photo: Alex Brenner Across Halloween week, Bridge Command will suspend their usual rotation of intergalactic missions to provide a trio of exclusive Halloween-themed experiences aboard the UCS Takanami and UCS Havock. While details of their contents remain tightly under wraps for now, the descriptions below offer a taste of what to expect. In addition, access to The Mess - Bridge Command's highly themed bar aboard the USC Warspite - remains available for just £10 per ticket, and includes a free cocktail. Silo (24th and 25th October) A UCN destroyer-class ship has gone silent carrying confidential cargo. Dark corridors, empty bunks, no crew. But something else lingers aboard. Contains themes of death. Mandala (27th - 31st OCtober) The Department of Applied Research is seeking volunteers for a confidential deployment. The UCN thanks you for your service. Contains themes of death and violence. Sepulchre (27th - 31st OCtober) We all have stories we like telling around the campfire. The Adamas Belt has three. All leading to the same place. Contains references to death, coercion and body modification. 📍 Vauxhall 💰 From £69.00 👻 Scare Level: 2/5 🕒 24th - 31st October 2026 🎟️ Book via bridgecommand.space For the latest news and updates on the best immersive Halloween experiences in London this October, follow us on Instagram 🎃

Ireland's premier immersive horror experience makes its UK debut at Avery Hill Mansion in Greenwich this Halloween season. Photo: The Nightmare Realm After 17 years of scaring the fine folk of Dublin, Cork and Tralee, immersive horror experience The Nightmare Realm has travelled across the Irish Sea to the farthest reaches of Greenwich for its UK debut. With two headline attractions (Sundown Manor and Avery Hill Asylum), an immersive midway with roaming characters and five intimate experiences for those lucky enough to stumble upon them, The Nightmare Realm has plenty to offer, and its lengthy scare mazes, detailed environments and sizeable cast combine to create an all-encompassing world that feels considerably larger than its initial impression suggests. Upon arrival, guests are dropped into Halloween Town, an outdoor midway that spans the width of the site and demonstrates an impressive attention to detail. Facades for everything from butchers and radio stations to churches and town halls sell the illusion that there’s far more to The Nightmare Realm than just the two headline experiences, and many of these facades are packed full of little touches (a pile of questionable pre-packaged meat in the window of the butchers with labels such as ‘100% Gobshite’ were personal favourites..). Photo: The Nightmare Realm Of course, a town is only as convincing as its residents, and Halloween Town is populated by characters who take great delight in sneaking up on and following guests as they explore every corner of the site. Throughout our time at The Nightmare Realm, we had several memorable encounters, including one with a blood-soaked trick-or-treater demanding something for their bucket, an imposing clown intent on taking a bite out of us while we ate, and an entertaining ambush by Molly Mayhem, the show's baseball bat-wielding poster girl. For those seeking a respite from being stalked around Halloween Town, five intimate indoor experiences lie behind unassuming doors scattered throughout the midway. These offer little in the way of relief for the nerves, though, as they house some of the site's most intense encounters. With each experience’s capacity ranging from just two to five people at a time, these intimate moments behind closed doors place guests inches away from the action, whether that's an exorcism, a séance, or a coffin fitting. Each provides a concentrated burst of adrenaline, with the small group sizes allowing for a more focused encounter than the headline mazes can offer. While Sundown Manor and Avery Hill Asylum are likely to draw the most attention, these smaller experiences are the show's real hidden gems, and we highly recommend trying to get through all five of them if you're able to. Photo: The Nightmare Realm On the east side of Halloween Town sits Sundown Manor, the first of The Nightmare Realm's two headline experiences. Centred around an ancient vampiric bloodline that's traversed the Irish Sea, the walk-through, no-contact maze sees guests accept an invitation to 'The Feeding' and become prey in this age-old and bloody ritual. As with The Nightmare Realm's previous mazes, Sundown Manor is a lengthy experience, taking upwards of ten to fifteen minutes to complete and featuring dozens of performers. This reflects the company's commitment to giving its environments room to breathe and allowing guests to explore rather than rushing them through at breakneck speed. That additional runtime and impressive cast don't necessarily translate into a more frightening experience, however. Your mileage will vary on how scary you'll find either of the mazes at The Nightmare Realm, but we found Sundown Manor more unsettling than terrifying, with surprisingly few moments that registered as genuine scares. The performers do an admirable job at establishing and maintaining the atmosphere throughout, but during our walkthrough, the maze rarely delivered the kind of sustained intensity or encounters associated with the most effective theme park scare attractions. The maze's final scene trades the confined switchbacks that make up the majority of the maze for a grand, cinematic space that leaves a lasting impression, even if it does little to increase the maze's overall scare count. It’s such a well-executed reveal that we’d have rushed through the entire maze again just to revisit it if we could. Photo: The Nightmare Realm The Nightmare Realm's second headline experience, Avery Hill Asylum, explores the medical experiments conducted by Dr Thorne on the asylum's forgotten patients, who now roam the facility’s numerous corridors, stairwells and wards. Sitting on the western edge of Halloween Town, the setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, with the experience making great use of the estate's disused buildings and leaving much of the existing architecture exposed with minimal set dressing. While impressive in scale, the building's sprawling layout does also prove to be a source of frustration. Navigating its warren of hallways and stairwells was occasionally confusing, with groups repeatedly heading in the wrong direction and attempting to open locked doors because the route wasn't always clear, which significantly impacted the flow of the experience. As in Sundown Manor, the performers do a commendable job of bringing the setting to life. Nurses and patients stalk guests along the corridors, emerge from doorways and roam the stairwells, which all helps to sustain the impression of it being an institution still inhabited by its tormented residents, but despite the atmospheric setting and the cast's best efforts, Avery Hill Asylum suffers from the same underlying issue as its sister attraction - it was more unsettling than scary. Photo: The Nightmare Realm While The Nightmare Realm's headline mazes impress with their scale, setting and sizeable casts, neither of them delivers the frequency or intensity of scares we'd hoped for. The five intimate experiences fare considerably better, bringing guests closer to the action and proving to be the standout moments of our visit. With its detailed midway, roaming characters and creative use of Avery Hill Mansion's pre-existing buildings, there's still plenty to enjoy here, even if the headline mazes struggle to turn their atmospheric settings into genuinely frightening experiences. ★★★½ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] The Nightmare Realm runs at Avery Hill Mansion, Greenwich until 1st November 2026. Tickets start from £38.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit thenightmarerealm.com

The interactive contemporary art exhibition arrives in London later this month, bringing together large-scale works by more than 10 international artists. Image: Balloon Museum Balloon Museum presents EUPHOЯIA – Art is in the Air will open at Immerse LDN, ExCeL London on 24th October 2026. Bringing together large-scale installations by leading international artists including A.A. Murakami, Alex Schweder, Camille Walala, Cyril Lancelin, Hyperstudio, Karina Smigla-Bobinski, Martin Creed, Rub Kandy, and SpY, EUPHOЯIA explores air as both artistic material and language, placing participation, perception and the relationship between audience, artwork and space at its centre. Combining contemporary art with an imaginative and playful experience for audiences of all ages, the exhibition invites visitors to explore, interact and see the familiar in unexpected ways. Founded in Italy and conceived and produced by Lux Entertainment, Balloon Museum is an international interactive contemporary art project bringing together exhibition-making, large-scale installations and new artistic commissions. Since its creation in 2021, the project has collaborated with more than 60 artists, supporting the development of new works by commissioning and co-developing with artists, including the creative, technical and production support behind the realisation of large-scale installations. Across its productions, including Pop Air, Let’s Fly, EmotionAir and EUPHORIA, Balloon Museum has developed an ongoing exploration of air and inflatable materials as a contemporary artistic language. Through large-scale installations and new artistic commissions, the project examines how these materials can be used to explore space, perception, movement and participation, creating new relationships between contemporary art, audiences and their surroundings. Photo: Martin Creed - Work No. 3883: Half the air in a given space Developed around the premise 'Art is in the Air,' EUPHOЯIA examines air not simply as a physical element, but as an artistic language in its own right. Through imaginative encounters, the exhibition invites audiences to experience contemporary art through movement, discovery and experimentation. The project challenges the traditional separation between artwork and audience, placing participation and discovery at the centre of the encounter. Visitors move beyond the role of spectator, entering into a direct relationship with the works, their materials and the spaces they occupy. Inflatable material - often associated with the imagery and visual language of childhood - is reconsidered as an expressive medium capable of addressing transformation, perception, our relationship with space and new possibilities within contemporary artistic practice. Photo: Hyperstudio Throughout EUPHOЯIA, the ephemeral is placed in dialogue with the tangible. Air gives volume and form to the works while remaining invisible itself, allowing artists to investigate presence and absence, weight and lightness, movement and stillness, and the shifting relationship between bodies and their surroundings. The name EUPHOЯIA itself reflects the spirit of the project, with its final three letters evoking the element that brings the artworks to life: air. Roberto Fantauzzi, CEO and Founder of Lux Entertainment, comments: Bringing EUPHORIA to London marks a new chapter in the journey of Balloon Museum. It is a project that reflects the evolution of our vision, creating an increasingly direct dialogue between art, space and the public. With its extraordinary cultural and creative energy, London is the ideal place for this next step and to offer audiences an experience that brings together international artists, different languages and new perspectives. Valentino Catricalà, curator of EUPHOЯIA – Art is in the Air, adds: We live in an age in which inflatable art has become a familiar presence, at the intersection of entertainment, design, and architecture. Through this exhibition, it is reinterpreted in a new light: as a form of visual art that offers a critical perspective on a society undergoing profound transformation. Photo: SpY's Ovoids Artwork Highlights Martin Creed’s iconic Work No. 3883: Half the air in a given space fills a room with hundreds of balloons, transforming a familiar space and challenging visitors’ perception of scale, movement and their surroundings. A.A. Murakami’s New Springcreates a dreamlike scene inspired by the fleeting beauty of cherry blossom, with delicate forms that appear, float and disappear. Participation is central to Karina Smigla-Bobinski’s work. In ADA (inspired by Ada Lovelace), visitors set a helium-filled sculpture in motion, leaving charcoal marks across the surrounding surfaces and creating an ever-evolving artwork. In Kaleidoscope, their interaction generates constantly changing combinations of colour, placing the audience at the centre of the work. Multidisciplinary creative studio Hyperstudio presents four works exploring movement, play and perception. 10 Agosto is a kinetic installation inspired by Italy’s Night of San Lorenzo, inviting visitors into a dreamlike landscape of light and movement. Invisible Ballet transforms a swirling vortex of balloons into an unexpected choreography, while HAHArena turns inflatable letters into an exploration of language and form. Their fourth work creates an ever-changing spatial landscape, allowing audiences to interact with their senses. Humour and surprise come to the fore Rub Kandy’s The GINJOS, which brings a surreal edge to the exhibition, while Cyril Lancelin creates a world of bold geometric forms. SpY’s kinetic installation Ovoids explores movement through a hypnotic arrangement of suspended forms, while Alex Schweder uses air to explore love and connection through an installation that appears to breathe. Camille Walala brings her distinctive visual language to the exhibition, transforming architectural forms through bold colour, pattern and playful geometry. Balloon Museum will open on the 24th October at Immerse LDN near Custom House station. Tickets are priced from £26.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit balloonmuseum.com

The holy grail of Christmas parties returns to a brand-new Greenwich home for a strictly limited run this December. Photo: Grant Walker. Humbug (2025) The holy grail of Christmas parties, HUMBUG, returns this festive season from 4th to 24th December with a brand-new home at Greenwich Borough Hall and a bigger, more raucous and even more ambitious show. Bought to life by new producers, Niche Productions Group, the two-hour-plus festive experience will bring together live music, games, a whole lot of festive mischief and one enormous Christmas party - all with one very important mission: bring back Santa’s spirit and save Christmas. This year, Santa has discovered a newfound love of rock n’ roll. Having ditched the sleigh and joined house band Johnny Whiskey & The Barflies, he’s decided he would much rather spend Christmas playing music and throwing a party than delivering presents. Revellers are invited to join Santa at his rock n roll bash but, unbeknownst to him, they’re on a secret mission to steer him back towards his real job of delivering Christmas. Over the course of the night, the audience will be enlisted by HUMBUG’s hosts to get involved in a series of ridiculous games, festive challenges and singalongs alongside live performances from Santa and Johnny Whiskey & The Barflies, all designed to turn the mood from Bah Humbug to fully festive! Photo: Grant Walker. Humbug (2025) If they succeed, the party reaches its crescendo, and Santa hits the decks for one final blowout. The Christmas bangers get turned all the way up, and everyone is invited onto HUMBUG’s unapologetically festive dancefloor, before the big man gets on with saving Christmas. First created by Secret Speakeasy, HUMBUG began life across two railway tunnels in Waterloo in 2023 before going on to take over The Truman Brewery and The Vaults, growing and evolving with each iteration. Across three seasons, the experience has expanded its signature mix of live entertainment, music, mischief and unapologetic Christmas excess, including the introduction of its live house band in its second year. Returning fans can expect all the elements that have become synonymous with Humbug, including irreverent and adult humour, live music, ridiculous games, themed cocktails and a shrine to the Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey. This year’s production brings together the creative and production teams behind award-winning live experiences including The Crystal Maze, Tokyo Nights, Backyard Cinema, The Traitors: Live Experience and Punchdrunk’s Viola’s Room. Corey Bennett, Managing Director at Niche Productions Group, comments: HUMBUG has been a hit with London audiences because, quite simply, it’s everything you want a Christmas party to be - fun, silly, a little bit naughty and disgustingly festive. We’re thrilled to be taking over HUMBUG this year and putting our own stamp on it. We’re keeping all the bits people know and love but turning everything else up - a bigger live stage show, a brilliant new home in Greenwich and a new story that puts the audience right in the middle of the action. We want this to be the biggest and loudest HUMBUG yet. A proper Christmas night out where you can eat, drink, sing, dance, get involved and be completely ridiculous for a few hours. Christmas is allowed to be a bit silly, and HUMBUG absolutely embraces that. Photo: Grant Walker. Humbug (2025) With capacity for up to 600 guests per performance, Greenwich Borough Hall will be transformed into an over-the-top festive playground where guests can eat, drink and be merry. Food and drink come courtesy of Thirty Food Gallery, with a menu of festive favourites and themed cocktails, including the return of HUMBUG’s signature cocktail Bah F*ckin Humbug. There are three ways to experience HUMBUG this year. VIP Cabaret Tables put guests close to the stage with some of the best views in the house, table service and a welcome drink; the Beer Hall offers shared tables in the heart of the action and your best chance to get involved; while allocated Balcony seating offers a view of the night from above. For groups looking for an alternative to the traditional office Christmas party, HUMBUG is also available for group bookings, half-venue hire and exclusive full-venue hire for up to 600 guests, with a range of food and drink packages available. HUMBUG is strictly an 18+ experience, with adult humour and themes throughout. HUMBUG runs at Greenwich Borough Hall from 4th to 24th December 2026. Tickets are priced from £18.50 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit humbugchristmas.co.uk

Image: Eclipso Everest: The First Ascent is the latest immersive VR production from French producers Eclipso and Small Creative. Fresh off a debut at the Venice International Film Festival as part of Venice Immersive, the experience is set to run alongside Titanic: Echos from the Past and Colosseum: The Legendary Arena at Eclipso's permanent Camden High Street venue from the end of September. Across the 35-minute experience, visitors follow in the footsteps of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary in 1953 as they became the first people to successfully reach the summit of Everest, travelling alongside the pair as their expedition unfolds. For Everest: The First Ascent, Eclipso has opted for PICO 4 Ultra Enterprise headsets over the HTC Vive headsets used in their other experiences. These newer headsets offer much-improved image resolution over previous generations of VR technology, and make every icicle, glacier and patch of untouched snow appear that much crisper. This extra clarity proves particularly effective here, with the experience relying heavily on stunning 360-degree vistas and a grand sense of scale to render its inhospitable environments. Image: Eclipso With headsets on, groups are ushered down a virtual corridor before finding themselves gathered around a campfire alongside Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. The opening scene follows Norgay and Hillary on their respective journeys to Kathmandu, albeit via very different modes of transport. For Hillary, it's the relative luxury of a train as it banks around the terraced rice fields built into the slopes of the Himalayan mountains. For Norgay, it's on foot alongside a herd of cows through the forest outside the city as they transport the staggering amount of equipment needed for their upcoming ascent. With plans finalised at the British Embassy in Kathmandu, the expedition party set off to Everest Base Camp via the Tengboche Monastery, where Norgay prays for safe passage in one of the experience's most reflective scenes. Before too long, they've traded the comfort of Kathmandu for canvas tents some 5,000 metres above sea level. With this, the environment becomes noticeably harsher as they continue to climb. Image: Eclipso For the pair, rare moments of solace come in the form of meals and tea prepared by other members of the expedition party on their route, but it's an unforgiving environment they find themselves in, and it's made all the more dangerous by the hazards they encounter along the way - including claustrophobic ice tunnels, hastily erected, vertigo-inducing bridges over ravines, and the ever-present threat of avalanches or the ground giving way. Visually, the sweeping vistas that Hillary and Norgay encounter on their ascent and eventual summit are beautifully realised, with the 360-degree perspective making it possible for audiences to appreciate the scale of the landscape in a way that a conventional screen can't. Image: Eclipso While free-roaming VR is now a familiar format to many, with 'metaverse' zones having featured in immersive exhibitions like Cleopatra: The Experience and The Last Days of Pompeii, Eclipso's body of work has consistently delivered something of a much higher quality, in large part due to its massive scope and brilliant attention to detail. With Everest: The First Ascent, Eclipso continues this streak and delivers another standout virtual reality experience that's up there with some of the best on offer anywhere in London. While it's far more contemplative than the action-packed Colosseum: The Legendary Arena, which runs alongside Everest at the company's Camden Town venue, it's nonetheless a wonderfully crafted piece of virtual reality that allows audiences to experience something they would never otherwise be able to. ★★★★ [Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review] Everest: The First Ascent runs at Eclipso on Camden High Street daily from 30th September 2026. Tickets are priced from £25.00 per person and can be booked via feverup.com

The immersive cocktail experience will get a festive update and several new audience roles this November. Photo: Inventive Productions This Christmas, Moonshine Saloon needs its guests' bottles to save Christmas. In The Christmas Run, a seasonal version of the immersive theatre show running from 24th November 2026 to 3rd January 2027, guests arrive in the legally dry Coldwater, Kansas, in 1904. The town is snowed in and has nearly run dry. Every sealed bottle of spirit a guest brings is tallied on the saloon board against the haul the town needs, and by the end of the night, Coldwater has its Christmas. Moonshine Saloon has run in London for eight years, and has welcomed hundreds of thousands of outlaws. Guests play out-of-state moonshiners, and a cast of live actors runs the night around them while the barkeeps turn each bottle into three cocktails per person. A 35cl bottle covers two guests and a 70cl covers four. Mocktail drinkers bring nothing, and hats and ponchos are handed out at the door so the Sheriff doesn't recognise anyone. Sam Shearman, founder of Inventive Productions, comments: Moonshine Saloon has always run on the bottles our guests bring through the door. For Christmas we've given every one of them a job. Each bottle goes up on the board, the whole room starts counting, and by the end of the night a saloon full of moonshiners has saved a town's Christmas. It's the most useful anyone has ever felt for bringing a bottle to a party. After eight years, plenty of our outlaws have been before, so we wanted to give them something new to find. The old Sheriff was killed on Christmas Day, and that's now part of the story to solve for outlaws. Join the Sheriff's Posse, and you might be the one who works out who did it. Photo: Inventive Productions Two guest roles are new for Christmas. One group can join the Sheriff's Posse, and be sworn in to find out who killed Coldwater's old Sheriff on a Christmas Day long past. Another guest can play the Reverend and deliver a Christmas sermon against drink to a room full of moonshiners. The Mayor returns from the regular show, elected on a promise to clean up Coldwater and the last person the Sheriff would suspect. Character parts cost £10 a head on top of any ticket. Every ticket covers the show and three cocktails from the guest's own bottle, at £38 (Tuesday to Thursday) and £44 (Friday to Sunday). The Christmas Bandit, from £48, includes two additions made for this season: The Reverend's Ruin, a festive cocktail from the secret distillery: spiced rum shaken with mulled wine, cinnamon, vanilla and fresh lemon, finished with egg white, and a whisky mince pie. The Christmas Outlaw, from £54.50, adds everything in the Bandit, plus sweets from the local confectionery and a take-home playing card and dice set. Photo: Inventive Productions For Christmas parties, groups of up to 30 can book tables for public shows. Larger teams can hire the whole saloon for the regular experience or extend their time with extra rounds and mingle time. Hires start any day, including Mondays, and the boss can be made Mayor or the Reverend. Moonshine Saloon: The Christmas Run runs at 28-30 Houndsditch near Aldgate from 24th November 2026 to 3rd January 2027. Tickets are priced from £38.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit christmas.moonshinesaloon.co.uk

The Shoreditch-based immersive cocktail experience will get a festive makeover next month. Photo: Inventive Productions From 3rd November, the Shoreditch-based sci-fi cocktail theatre experience will be transformed as part of a seasonal special with Avora: Frozen Realm, a winter version of the immersive cocktail experience in which guests are recruited as scientists and sent through a gateway to a bioluminescent planet that has iced over. Avora is a bioluminescent planet, and this winter it has frozen. Roscorp, the corporation running the expedition there, says the freeze is seasonal. Its lead scientist, Dr Shelly, believes every word of the official report. Its head of security, Mason Kriel, is less convinced. The Avorians, the planet's native civilisation, seem entirely untroubled by the cold. For anyone who has been to Avora before, the story has been rebuilt with a new storyline, new set and a new cocktail format. Recruits join a Roscorp expedition to study Luminol, a substance found throughout Avora's ecosystem with the potential to transform medicine and energy on Earth. Roscorp keeps its access through a fragile cultural exchange with the Avorians, and the mission soon reveals more than anyone was briefed for. Guests arrive as Roscorp's newest recruits. They check in, lock away their belongings and change into Roscorp jumpsuits. Dr Shelly's briefing explains the cold away, Mason runs the security search, and each recruit is handed a flask of synthesised Luminol, the first of three cocktails, to carry through the gateway. On the other side is a frozen world. CODA, Roscorp's AI, runs the investigation from there on guests' own phones, where they can unlock evidence to help their mission. Photo: Inventive Productions The drinks follow Luminol, the substance Roscorp has come to study, through its three states. When the Avorians meet the recruits in the forest, the second cocktail arrives on a tree log: diluted Luminol, drawn from Avora's streams. The last one glows. It is Luminol in its purest form, from the Tree of Spirits. Avora's bar team of skilled mixologists make every drink; mocktail versions of all three are also available, and a live cast stays in character throughout. The Avorians speak warmly of the Harvest, a sacred celebration that is almost here. Roscorp would rather talk about the weather. Sam Shearman, founder of Inventive Productions, comments: When we opened Avora in 2022, the question guests faced was whether to exploit a new world or protect it. The new story flips that: you arrive certain you're the visitor, and slowly realise you might not be. For winter, we wanted the freeze to be the first clue. Roscorp has a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, and Dr Shelly believes every word. Mason doesn't, and guests will uncover the truth along the way. Photo: Inventive Productions Avora: Frozen Realm runs from 3rd November 2026 to 10th January 2027, Tuesday to Sunday, with afternoon sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. Large groups can privately hire for Christmas parties: once the mission concludes, the group keeps the venue for the rest of its booked time. Avora: The Frozen Realm runs at 127 Hackney Rd near Hoxton from 3rd November 2026 to 10th January 2027. Tickets are priced from £44.50 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit frozen.avora-experience.co.uk

The immersive wizarding prison cocktail experience will receive a new seasonal update for the festive period, opening this November. Photo: Inventive Productions On 21st December, the sun sets on the longest night of the year. At Hexmoor, a live-actor prison show in East London, the inmates keep that night at every show from 3rd November to 10th January. They are held under several thousand feet of concrete; nobody can see the sky, and nobody wants to guess wrong. The reason sits in the realm's oldest record. Thousands of years ago, the Bureau of Arcane Order cast the Hollow King into the void and sealed him there with light. On the longest night, light is at its weakest everywhere at once, and he can reach back through. So the Bureau orders every building in the realm to keep a flame burning from dusk until first light, prisons included. High Constable Cordelia Constance-Xanthe IV has relayed the order to her inmates and is complying to the letter. The notice on the wing adds that any inmate found negotiating with the Hollow King will lose canteen privileges. Photo: Inventive Productions For the first time in its history, Hexmoor is decorated. The inmates have dressed the wing with whatever they could steal: jumpsuits twisted into wreaths, confiscated keys strung along the bars. For once, the prison is beautiful. Every cell is issued a lantern and ordered to keep it lit until dawn. Then frost starts forming on the inside of the walls, the lanterns begin to fail, and the Hollow King is due at midnight. Guests arrive convicted of crimes of dark magic. They are issued a jumpsuit at the door, so nobody needs a costume, and are locked in a cell. Each guest is given a wand, and its light shows up contraband hidden around the wing. Find enough of it, and you find the vault, where the wand becomes the price of entry. Three cocktail potions are smuggled in over the course of the night. Photo: Inventive Productions The Longest Night replaces the standard Hexmoor show for the season, with its own story and its own tickets, so past inmates come back to a new sentence. Winter Enchanter tickets add an additional festive cocktail and a Hexmoor tin candle, so guests can take the flame home. Sam Shearman, founder of Inventive Productions, said: We wanted to know what a prison does at Christmas when it has nothing to decorate with. The inmates steal whatever isn't nailed down and make the place lovely, before the lights start going out. Our fantasy realm and the real world turn under the same sun, so the real solstice falls on 21 December for both. Nobody inside Hexmoor can see the sky, though, so they keep the Observance all season. Every night could be the one. Hexmoor: The Longest Night runs at 127 Hackney Rd near Hoxton from 3rd November 2026 to 10th January 2027. Tickets are priced from £48.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit winter.hexmoor.co.uk

The UK's longest running immersive cocktail experience will get a festive makeover for the first time this November. Photo: Inventive Productions The UK's longest-running immersive cocktail experience is running its first Christmas show in its 9 year history. The Christmas Pardon opens at Alcotraz London on Hackney Road on 24th November 2026 and runs to 3 January 2027. Guests bring a bottle of spirit and a wrapped present, and the Warden judges the presents themself. Whoever brought the best one leaves with a clean record and free tickets for six to come back in the new year. Christmas has been smuggled into Alcotraz. New inmates arrive at Cell Block Two-One-Two carrying a bottle and a wrapped present, and the guards confiscate both at intake. The bottles go to the canteen. The cell block's Christmas tree is built from confiscated property: bottles, tin cups, hip flasks and parcels. The Governor has ordered one Christmas pardon each sentence. The Warden’s request for it to be postponed until next Christmas was denied. They are now judging the presents personally, and suspiciously have cleared a lot of space in their office to do it. Photo: Inventive Productions Alcotraz is immersive theatre set in a vintage American prison run by its inmates. Guests arrive as new inmates and are suited up in orange jumpsuits. Live actors play the Warden, their crooked guards and the inmates who really run the block, and they build the night around each group. Guests can take a job from the inmates and get pulled into the story, or stay in their cell and watch it play out. The drinks are contraband. Each guest smuggles in their own spirit, using a smuggling device handed out on arrival, while the guards look the other way. The inmates working the canteen, played by trained mixologists, turn it into four cocktails for each guest, which are made to their taste. There is no menu. If the Warden asks, it is chicken soup. Non-drinkers can take the mocktail option and need no bottle. For its first Christmas, the regular Alcotraz show gets new set dressing, props, lighting and story. Alcotraz is rated 4.9 stars from approximately 15,000 reviews across its locations, with six cell blocks in the UK. The Christmas Pardon runs in London only. Sam Shearman, Founder of Inventive Productions, said: Most office Secret Santas end with somebody holding a candle they did not want. We wanted the present to matter, so at Alcotraz the best one gets its giver back into prison. The Warden is judging it themself, which is the part I would worry about. Tickets start at £51 a head for The Rookie, with three character add-ons - the Escape Artist, the Mole and the Janitor - costing an additional £11 each. The show runs for 1 hour 45 minutes, and inmates must be 18 or over. Alcotraz: The Christmas Pardon runs at 127 Hackney Rd near Hoxton from 24th November 2026 to 3rd January 2027. Tickets are priced from £51.00 per person. For more information and to book tickets, visit christmas.alcotraz.co.uk